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Computer game shifts up a gear if kids act bored

THROW out your Xbox, young couch potato! Active electronic games that can alter themselves to hold players’ interest are on the way from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.

To find out what makes a game fun, 56 children aged between 8 and 10 were asked to play Bug Smasher, a game in which they “squashed” lights that appeared on pressure-sensitive floor tiles. In different versions of the game, the bugs appeared at various rates and made different sounds.

The children were asked which versions they preferred, and the researchers combined their answers with measurements of their heart rate …